Please spay and neuter your pets! While your newborn pets are cute, failing to do this allows your little darlings to add to the population of homeless animals. Adopt pets from your local animal rescues/shelters, there are plenty of animals just waiting for a home.

This might end up being an extremely unpopular comment, but I've always been curious why westerners will travel out to remote third world locations when the money from the plane ticket would seemingly be better spent on food or medicine for these people. Aside from people with high skill level experience like a medical doctor, I don't understand what the point of people going out to these places is, other than a photo opportunity.

I will also throw in here that before heading to West Africa to volunteer you need to vet the organisation extensively for your own safety. There are plenty of illegitimate organisations either looking to threaten/extort money out of you once here, or who are after /you/ (especially as a white female).